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ProxThink is a general yet also structured way to think about and relate to situations, and can complement network theory, contextual considerations, systems thinking and scenario planning, as well as science, philosophy, creativity, governments, markets and other processes.

ProxThink leverages emerging phenomena such as networked participation and Internet-enabled proximity awareness by using a new growth model. It can complement and enhance existing social structures, such as democracy and capitalism. It applies to major challenges like climate change, the economy, financial turmoil, the need for innovation, and political, social and health conditions, as well as more routine concerns. It is a systemic new way for people to innovate, coordinate, collaborate, and manage resources. It can boost thinking, creativity, growth and sustainability.

Even though this new set of ideas and processes can complement existing social structures, it is a paradigm shift. It is a different way to think and relate. It allows us to think different things and solve problems in different ways. It makes possible new kinds of growth. It makes possible different ways of life that are more stable over the long term, yet also more dynamic, diverse and lively over the short term.

The Microsoft offer for Yahoo is a good reminder that growth and shareholders’ interests are primary. We now live in a world which increasingly requires that we think and act in ways related to the systems, environments and networks in which we are enmeshed. It is no longer clear that markets are up to this task.

As an example, as Øystein Dahle, former Vice President of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea, has observed: “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”

It’s entirely possible that even in the markets in which Google, Microsoft and Yahoo play, people and elements related directly or indirectly by search and online advertising could be better served by frameworks which take the systems, environments and networks in which they are enmeshed, into account. The ProxThink Growth Model may be a step in that direction, since systems, environments and networks can be seen as proximities, and the proximity of situations play a prominent role in the model.

It’s entirely possible that what people mainly want is not stuff that is free, or to save or make money, or even things which might make their individual lives better.

It’s entirely possible that what people want is to be related to, and to be in, stimulating proximities. To have rich, varied, rewarding relationships that nurture and sustain them, in proximities and contexts and environments which encourage and support such relationships, and make such relationships more likely.